Seven Things I Learned

A year ago today, I committed to fast from dating for one year. I have mentioned it several times on this blog but have never written specifically about it. Now that my year has ended, I would like to share with you some of the things I've learned over the last twelve months (in approximate order of when I learned them).

1) How to not be lonely
An adage I heard once goes, "Lonely single people turn into lonely married people." This lesson stuck with me and it was one of the only lessons I actively tried to teach myself during this last year (as opposed to the ones that I accidentally learned or rather, left the door open to be learned).

There are certain target times for loneliness to strike: when you're alone at night, when you have nobody to share your thoughts with or hang out with when you're bored or accompany you to this or that event. It's easy for single to people to bemoan their singleness in these moments, but if your tendency is to bemoan, it will happen when you're in a relationship too. Even when another person knows you better than anyone else ever has, they can never know you fully, so in a way you will always be ultimately alone. Always.

Fortunately I think I learned how to not bemoan my aloneness; how to not be lonely. While sometimes I may have felt utterly alone and unknown, I reminded myself that God knows me fully; more fully than I know myself (Psalm 39). Turning to him in those moments brought me comfort. I also turned more toward friendship. In a society that glorifies romance, the wonder and strength of friendship often falls by the wayside. Reaching out to friends on nights when I had nothing to do, sharing my deepest thoughts and secrets with them rather than with a romantic interest, brought a vibrant shade back to my life.

In moments where I could not bring myself to be comforted either by God or by friends, I simply prayed and let myself feel lonely. Sometimes I even tried to find enjoyment in my aloneness. I suffered through and am the better for it.

2) How to say no

This was another lesson that I planned to learn. I'm not sure I was successful, however, but I thought it deserved to be discussed.

I mentally prepared for what would happen if someone asked me on a date during my year of fasting from dating. Depending on how I felt about them, I decided I would say either: 1) No, sorry, I'm not interested, or 2) No, sorry, I'm not dating for now, but maybe you can ask me again in August!

I never had to use either of those, though, and I think the reason is because I learned (accidentally) how to imply "no."

3) How to imply no

One of the biggest reasons I made this year-long commitment was because I have dated a lot in the past and knew something was wrong with that cycle. I couldn't really tell why the cycle was happening. I just figured it was an idol of mine that I should purge (which was true, but not the whole picture).

The problem was that I was consistently making myself "available" to date without realizing it. I flirted and I gave men one-on-one attention whether I was interested in them or not because I liked the attention I received back. I was more than willing to be alone with a guy friend and share deep thoughts and feelings with him because I wanted to feel cherished. My behavior made me available.

However, when I had no intention of dating anyone, the way I treated men started to change. I drew boundaries. I pursued my friendships with other women rather than trying to dive deep into my friendships with men. I stopped flirting. I don't think I even realized this change was happening until I started questioning why no one seemed to be interested in me.

Being closed-off can go too far, but in my case I found wisdom in being more careful about who I opened up to.

4) What it's like to be addicted

This is probably the biggest and most important lesson I learned throughout the year. It colored the way I looked at my sin and my past and my year-long fast.

I clearly remember the morning at church when I realized my problem was an addiction. My church didn't often do topical sermons, but in this case, they were doing a four-week sermon series called "The Problem of Pain." This week happened to be on addiction. I sat there during the whole sermon wondering what on earth my "addiction" could be, since Pastor Nick insisted that everyone had some sort of addiction, even if it wasn't substance addiction, even if it was subtle, even if it was socially acceptable. I sat there wondering and for the whole sermon, couldn't put my finger on it.

During worship afterward, though, it hit me like a brick wall. My addiction was relationships with men.

I realized in many ways how much this addiction resembled addiction to substance abuse. I realized how real it was. I clearly saw the ways I jumped through hoops to get my fix. I saw how I shot up, got high, and when I came back down, everything was about my next fix, and I knew how to get it. I knew how to get the attention, how to get guys to like me, how to get the attention I craved.

Then I realized that my year of no dating needed to be more than a behavioral change. I needed to undergo a deep and thorough heart change. I knew if I treated this term like "jail" (i.e. strictly behavioral change), that I would just go back to my drug as soon as I was discharged, just like so many jailed drug addicts do. Rather, I needed to treat my year more like rehab, where I learn how to function and succeed in a world where my drug is all around me, tempting me. I didn't really have a way of doing that except to, like I said before, passively open the door for God to work, but for me that was enough.

5) The Awesome Test

It's been hard for me in the past to decide how much about a person should be a deal-breaker and how much I should let slide; how strict I should be in my "qualifications" for a man. Lexi and I recently found a list of "husband qualifications" that I had written sometime in high school and we had a good laugh at the absurdity and rigidity of my standards (which of course my high school self did not abide by when a prospective relationship presented itself). In many cases, I've settled for less. (Briefly, let me say that some of the "settling" I've done may have been more a symptom of my pride; i.e. "I'm better than this person and deserve someone more at my level" rather than allowing that person dignity and humbling myself to recognize that the problem may have been me.)

At any rate, I realized that I needed to both throw away my checklist and yet be unrelenting in the most important standards. It was then that I developed The Awesome Test. It's very simple, only four facets, but I believe it covers all my bases. Here are the four facets:
1. Does this person find me to be awesome? Do they get excited about who I am as a person?
2. Do I find this person to be awesome? Do I get excited about who they are?
3. Does this person help me to see Jesus as awesome? Do their words and actions help me to become more excited about who Jesus is?
4. Do I help this person to see Jesus as awesome? Do my words and actions help this person to become more excited about who Jesus is?

I have never dated or met a guy who passed all four facets, which is why, I believe, I have so far never had a successful relationship. I now swear by The Awesome Test and concede that if I find someone that passes, I will probably marry him.

6) What it means to "like" somebody

About halfway through my year of no dating, I got a crush on someone. Because of my inability to truly act on my feelings, I spent a lot of time just thinking about it, processing through it with friends, and trying to decide where to go with it. That's when I realized that there is a big difference between being attracted to somebody and really liking them.

I realized that with this particular man, I was merely attracted to his appearance, his skills, and what little I knew of his personality. I realized that this didn't necessarily mean that I liked him. But I didn't know what really liking someone did mean.

Then, a month or two ago, in talking with Lexi I realized that, at least for me, the distinction between attraction and liking someone is whether or not I truly cared about the individual. This may be obvious to many of you, but for me it was incredibly liberating. The man I had had a crush on several months prior, I didn't care about him and his well-being all that much. I just cared about what he could do for me, all the good feelings he could make me feel. It occurred to me how selfish my crush on him had been.

This will help me a lot in the future, I think, when I find that I'm attracted to somebody but don't actually care about him, it will be easier to let my feelings for that person slide away. And when I am both attracted to someone and care about them, I can take my feelings for him more seriously.

7) I can't stop

I have talked about my lessons learned and my little improvements but one of the most terrifying things I've found is that when it comes to my sin, I can't stop.

This area of my life has been being sanctified slowly for several years, not just for the last year. But I face the dreadful truth that I'll never get to the point where I will never slip back into old sin. I will always be tempted to idolize, lust, gorge on attention. I will continue to disappoint, hurt, and fail people. I may improve, but the struggle will always be there, for the rest of my life. It won't be until I've moved on from this planet that that will change and I will finally be completely free from sin.

Of course, in the midst of the grave fact of my unrelenting sin, there's grace. No matter what I do or whom I sin against, God will always forgive me and give me another chance. If I get married, I hope to be married to a husband who also forgives me again and again. And sanctification will continue, even now that my fast has ended.


God bless.

Writing A Book

Behold, I have a dream! A dream of writing a book. I would really just love that.

There are a few things that stand in my way of this dream:

1) I have no topics that I feel both competent enough in and passionate enough about to use for an entire book.

2) I lack the writing skills. This blog, however, is a testament to my efforts to change this.

3) I lack the life experience. Whether I write about my own experiences, try to impart wisdom or knowledge, or even write a fiction based on my own experiences, I doubt I will have anything worthwhile to say until I am a few decades older.

I consider myself to be a writer, but a writer must be an expert in something in order to write anything worthwhile. While there are innumerable topics a person could be an expert in, there is one topic everyone is an expert in: our own life.

But a biography about a boring life is not really worth reading.

My goal is to write a book, but my other, more important goal, is to live a life worth writing a book about. Even if a book never gets written, at least I will have lived a worthwhile, productive, adventurous life.

Who knows? Maybe when I am old I will have something to say.


God bless.

Life Competence

Last night at Bible study, Page said something along the lines of, Jesus much preferred to being around people who were honest about their lives being messed up to people who pretended like nothing was wrong in their lives. I had honestly never made that specific observation before but it's something I really like about Jesus.

Conversation continued with how the Church is supposed to be a people who are honest about their sin and shortcomings, but since we're generally not, people don't feel welcome into our clique.

And I thought, why would people want to come into a place where they knew nobody had their act together? That's no way to sell a product, so to speak. If people want to learn about how to live their life and figure out what their soul is and what to do with it, shouldn't they go to a place where they feel people are competent in those areas?

For example, as a musician, I would hate to walk into an orchestra where everyone is frankly really bad musicians, and not only that but really open and honest about it. I would think that these people are a bunch of clowns and don't take their music seriously or professionally. It would seem to me that they weren't trying to improve. I probably wouldn't stick around. Who wants a church like that? I would find another orchestra where people had their act together, where the conductor was the only one to point out others' mistakes and everyone else just quietly improved their skills in the practice room, where no one else could judge them.

But then I thought of something I am definitely interested in but much, much less competent in: ultimate frisbee.

One of the biggest reasons I don't make any efforts to even go to pick-up games is because I'm so intimidated by others' skill and so afraid of their judgment of my lack of it. Sports can be kind of unforgiving because of how competitive people get, and even if I don't get directly hollered at for making an error, other players will subtly start avoiding me.

But what if there was an ultimate team where everyone sucked as much as I did and that was okay? What if there was a team where I got gentle pats on the back when I made an error and everyone threw the frisbee to me all the more in hopes of improving my skills? Where everyone else was working to improve their skills as well but happily admitted their many shortcomings? Is that a team I would join? ABSOLUTELY.

So that's how it clicked for me. People who are interested in ultimate frisbee but suck at it feel comfortable learning around other people that suck. And people who are interested in playing in an orchestra but don't know one note from the next are going to be much more comfortable around people who aren't naturally talented musicians either. And people interested in figuring out their lives and souls but don't know where to start are going to be much more interested in walking into a church where everyone else is trying to figure it all out too. No one is competent in the area of life. No one. There are only those who feign competence.


God bless.

Comparison of Three Books

Yesterday I finished "Blue Like Jazz" by Donald Miller, and before that I read "A Walk Across America" by Peter Jenkins and before that I read "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" by Mildred D. Taylor. Needless to say, I have a lot of time on my hands lately.

These three books have very little in common of course. "A Walk Across America" was definitely my favorite, followed by "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry." "Blue Like Jazz" was mediocre in my opinion. It took me awhile to get used to the fact that it was neither a novel nor a book on Christian living, but rather, a collection of seemingly thrown-together blog posts with no real continuity whatsoever and a healthy dose of ignorance and pomposity. (Is it possible for a writer to ever come across as unpompous?) But there were a few things in it that made me think, which of course I enjoy and which made it worth it.

The thing that tied these three books together for me was that they all sent a message: everybody matters.

"Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" told me that black people matter.
"A Walk Across America" told me that poor people matter.
"Blue Like Jazz" told me that non-Christians matter.

So I put the last book down and think, what's God trying to tell me here?

Who am I treating as though they don't matter?

I'll have to think on it.


God bless.

P.S. Next on the list is "Same Kind of Different As Me" by Ron Hall and Denver Moore. I don't know much about this book at all but maybe it will carry the same theme.